Risking your life to save someone else sounds heroic. We'd all like to think we'd do the same thing, but actually jumping into action is a whole other story. For these four heroes, there was no other choice….and the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission honored them and 14 others with medals commending their bravery and quick thinking.

At seven months pregnant, Meghan O'Reilly-Green dove in to help rescue a man from drowning off the coast of Hatteras, North Carolina. After hearing two men shouting for help, she grabbed a nearby boogie board, swam out to the men, and helped tow them toward a sandbar, where first responders brought them to safety.

An observant trucker noticed a driver was in trouble – and wound up rescuing him from a prisoner who had freed himself in the back of a police cruiser.

Clinton D. Blackburn saw an officer struggling as he was pulling off the highway in Bardstown, Kentucky, and came to his rescue. By then, the prisoner had grabbed a gun, and Blackburn bravely fought with him until the officer was able to break free and restrain him. Blackburn also was given the 2014 Goodyear Highway Hero Award.

An off-duty police officer made a daring rescue to help an elderly man driving the wrong way. Alan Cavener noticed the driver of an SUV heading in the wrong direction on a busy highway in Meridian, Idaho.

He sped ahead, parked his vehicle and climbed over a concrete barrier to run across traffic to reach the man, who was driving less than 5 miles per hour on the 65 mile per hour interstate. Running alongside the car, Cavener reached through the opened window and steered the vehicle to safety.

Truck driver McKenzie McKay Guffey jumped out at the scene of an accident and saved the driver who was trapped inside his burning SUV in Rye, New York

Guffey tried to extinguish the fire, then broke out the passenger side window, pulling the driver to safety before the vehicle became engulfed in flames.

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission awarded 18 individuals the Carnegie Medal last month for extraordinary civilian heroism. The medal – which includes a financial grant – is given to those who risk their lives to save the lives of others. There have been 38 awards so far in 2015, and 9,775 recipients to date since the award's inception in 1904.

(READ more at Carnegie Hero Fund Commission)

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